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MacKenzie Scott Dominates 2025 U.S. Megadonations
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MacKenzie Scott’s 2025 Giving Surge
In 2025, MacKenzie Scott contributed roughly $7 billion in megagifts, accounting for one-third of the $19.2 billion total made by major donors that year. The cumulative amount she has given since 2021 now stands at $26.2 billion across thousands of organizations focused on housing, diversity, equity and inclusion, disaster recovery, and other causes. These figures come from data provided to Fortune by Giving USA and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
2025 U.S. Philanthropic Landscape
The overall charitable giving engine in the United States reached $617.2 billion in 2025, a 5.7 % increase over the prior year. The report includes donations from individuals, bequests, foundations, and corporations. Other top megadonors that year were Michael Bloomberg ($4.3 billion), Bill Gates ($3.7 billion), Warren Buffett ($1.34 billion), and Susan and Michael Dell (nearly $1 billion).
Official Statements & Responses
“It was a positive year for charitable giving, with virtually all categories of recipient organizations achieving solid or better growth at the aggregate level,” said Gabe Cooper, vice chair of the Giving USA Foundation and founder-CEO of Virtuous.
Verbatim Quotes
- “It is these ripple effects that make imagining the power of any of our own acts of kindness impossible,” — June. Scott
- “The potential of peaceful, non-transactional contribution has long been underestimated, often on the basis that it is not financially self-sustaining, or that some of its benefits are hard to track. But what if these imagined liabilities are actually assets?” — Plus
Impact and Outlook
Scott’s low-profile approach keeps her off the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “Philanthropy 50” list, despite the scale of her gifts. She attributes much of her generosity to personal experiences of kindness, noting that generosity activates the same brain pleasure centers as food, sex, and receiving gifts. After signing the Giving Pledge, she continues to draw on Amazon shares received in her divorce, leaving her net worth at nearly $37 billion.
A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on June 25, 2026.